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I'm a sucker for second-chance stories. That's one reason I reached former Minnesota House GOP Speaker Steve Sviggum on an Arizona golf course last week to talk about his bid to rejoin the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.
As is his wont, Sviggum politely agreed to chat. In the 38 years since his freshman year (and mine) at the Legislature, I've never known the 65-year-old farmer and former math teacher from Kenyon to be anything but courteous to us Capitol scribes. The respect became mutual and served him well through eight sessions (1999-2006) in the big chair at the front of the House chamber. (Take a lesson, President Trump.)
But good feeling didn't keep this newspaper from urging Sviggum to make a tough choice in 2012: Either continue to serve as a top staffer to the state Senate GOP caucus, or remain on the Board of Regents. Doing both is a conflict of interest.
Sviggum did not agree then, and says he still doesn't. Nevertheless, he yielded to the judgment of those who perceived a conflict and resigned from the board.
He did not have to do so. He'd been elected in 2011 for a six-year term, and no one could force him out. But Sviggum had not sought a regents' seat to stroke his own ego or stay in the public eye after his long legislative career ended. He wanted to be an effective contributor to governing what he calls "the most important public institution in the state," and he rightly saw that his effectiveness was in doubt.
"I didn't want a confrontation or any conflict about me to erode the university's mission or effort," he said last week. "It's too important. This is the institution that drives this state."
I share that view. It's the other reason I called.
A Board of Regents election should not pass unnoticed. That board should include Minnesota's best-and-brightest leaders of large, complex, publicly accountable institutions. It should also broadly reflect the economic variety and demographic diversity of this state.
But because its 12 members are elected by the Legislature — four every two years — other, less lofty considerations often decide who serves. Things like partisan affiliation. Personal friendships. Popular passions. Special-interest demands.
All of those considerations were evident on Feb. 7, when a joint House-Senate committee recommended a slate of four candidates to the full Legislature. All will likely be in play to some degree Wednesday night when legislators meet in joint convention to make the final selections.
It's a good bet that Sviggum will win a seat. Some will say that's because he's a Republican, and Republicans have a 111-90 vote advantage in the combined House and Senate. Some will say cronyism is alive and well. Sviggum is popular among his former peers, some of whom he recruited as legislative candidates.
Some will object that former legislators are an overrepresented class on the state's two higher-ed governing boards. Sviggum, if elected, will take the Second District seat that has been occupied by former state Rep. Laura Brod. Sviggum's classmate in the state House Class of 1978, Dean Johnson, is the board's current chair.
Some will say that it's regrettable that a seat that had been occupied by a woman will go to a man, when a well-qualified woman, former Mendota Heights Mayor Sandra Krebsbach, was on offer in the Second District.
All of those objections have some merit. But Krebsbach wasn't the alternative that appealed to fiscally conservative Republicans. They were drawn to former Green Bay Packer and car dealership owner Jim Carter of Hastings — until Carter went too far in criticizing current university officials and stepped out of bounds in response to fresh reminders that 40 years ago in Green Bay, he had been the subject of a sexual harassment charge.
When Republicans on the higher-education committee decided they couldn't countenance Carter, they called Sviggum. He dropped plans to attend a high school basketball game and drove to St. Paul. Three hours later, he was on the panel's slate.
It's not clear what they would have done if he had declined. My guess is that Plan B wasn't nearly as satisfactory.
Sviggum said he'd let a few key legislators know earlier this year that he was still willing to be a regent. "A long time ago, I decided I wanted to live a life of service, not of accumulating stuff. I don't expect to run for office again. This is a good way to serve."
After helping to craft $30 billion biennial state budgets and navigating through red ink without raising taxes, Sviggum believes he has something to offer as a university overseer. He thinks higher education should have a bigger share of the state's budget. But he also maintains that the university should be making its state dollars stretch further, as other public entities have done.
"I know a little bit about that," he said.
Sviggum is given to Scandinavian understatement. I'm fluent in that dialect, too: The university could do a lot worse.
Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.
